


whatever a sun will always sing is you

by Cygna_hime



Series: higher than soul can hope [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, May/December Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and other such romantic concepts, nothing sexy happens until all characters are of age, political machinations, the needs of the many/needs of the one dialectic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-01 12:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10921728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cygna_hime/pseuds/Cygna_hime
Summary: Regis is born without a soulmark.In which you'd think that knowing your true love's name from the moment they're born would make things easier, but unfortunately, as you probably already know, people.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [This anon](http://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3451.html?thread=3628667#cmt3628667) on the kinkmeme wanted Regis/Prompto and soulmates. I live but to serve, and also to make everything unnecessarily complicated.
> 
> Warnings and tags will be updated on a chapter-by-chapter basis, so keep an eye on them.

Regis is born without a soulmark.

That in itself isn’t uncommon; everyone who’s older than their soulmate is born unmarked. They go through life waiting and watching – though usually there isn’t much of either. Most of the time the soulmark appears well before they’re old enough to read it for themselves, curling itself into existence as somewhere their soulmate takes a first breath.

Regis’s doesn’t. It doesn’t appear when he’s an infant, or a toddler, or a child, too young to know what he’s missing. When he’s a teenager, he checks his skin in the mirror every day, but it remains blank as new paper (except for the acne, alas). When he’s a young adult, he resigns himself to the apparent fact that he is one of the unfortunate ones without a soulmate. Perhaps they died so young that he never noticed their name appear and fade; perhaps he simply never had a name at all.

He wonders to himself, in the long dark of the nights when sleep doesn’t come, what’s so wrong with him. What flaw in him did the Astrals see, to deny him the blessing they grant to so many? He has so many blessings, and yet this one is lost to him. Is he a monster, incapable of love? Would he make any soulmate’s life a hell? He doesn’t think so, but would he know?

When he’s twenty-one, he meets Aulea on one of his not-entirely-licit trips outside the Citadel. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, with her soft dark hair that floats around her head like a veil and blue eyes that seem to pierce him through. When she smiles, her mouth quirks up on one side more than the other. She makes him laugh; he makes her smile.

When he tries to kiss her for the first time, she puts a hand over his mouth, and her smile fades. “Save that for your soulmate,” she says.

“I don’t have a soulmate,” he replies, the first time he’s told anyone. Many at the Citadel _know_ , of course, but that’s not the same as _telling_ someone.

“Neither do I,” she says, and lets him kiss her, soft and sweet.

Aulea’s soulmark faded away when she was five. Pneumonia, she says; her parents helped her find the obituary. (Everyone gets an obituary in Insomnia, even politically-irrelevant children, just in case someone is looking for them.) The first time she saw her was at the funeral. She stays in touch with the family, thinks of her soulmate’s parents as her parents-in-law, even now.

Regis envies her, in some twisted way. He’ll never have even that much. At least she knows she would have been loved, if she’d had the chance. In one of his darker moods, he tells her so, and she tugs him over sideways so his head tucks under her chin and holds him, like a child almost. “You are loved,” she says.

It’s that moment he holds on to when he eventually asks her to be his queen.

The media spin a beautiful story of true love overcoming differences of rank and background. They fall in love with the modest woman who didn’t think she was good enough to be the King’s soulmate, with the ardent man who found her anyway. No one asks them for proof; it’s simply taken for granted that he never would have dared wed a commoner, never would have wed at all, if she weren’t his soulmate. Never mind that it’s all an invention, it’s a good one. Regis wishes he could believe it himself. It would be nice, to be living in such a romance.

What he is living is good enough. Aulea is a wonderful queen, even if she and Clarus conspire against him on a regular basis. And he loves her. Some days he wakes and has to check his skin to be sure that her name hasn’t somehow inscribed itself on his body while he slept. He wonders how it could be possible to love someone more than this.

Her pregnancy is difficult for her, but Regis suspects nothing particularly amiss until he’s in the hospital room watching her bleed out onto the once-white sheets. The doctors do everything they can, but it’s not enough. He sits beside her and holds her hand and watches her die, and there’s nothing anyone can do.

She’s with her soulmate now, he tells himself. They can be together at last. It doesn’t help. He slips into a dark fugue, one in which he acts as if in a dream, arranging the state funeral, seeing to her effects. Clarus has to bully him into eating, into sleeping. The only thing that seems real in those days is little Noctis. When he holds his son in his arms, he almost feels alive.

It’s six months before he wakes one morning feeling like he lives in his body again. The grief isn’t gone, but it doesn’t consume him. He can bear it.

He looks at himself in the mirror: he’s lost weight, gone hollow about the face more even than usual. That won’t do. He strips out of his pajama top, and as he turns away to reach for the shirt laid out on the dresser, something catches the corner of his eye.

There’s a name there, written across the left side of his chest, curling over his ribs under his arm.

_Prompto Argentum_

Regis sits down hard on the end of the bed. After all this time? Now?

He breathes in, tries to think. He hasn’t seen himself in the mirror since – since Aulea told him she was pregnant, give or take a month. That means his, his _soulmate_ is…no more than six months older than his _son_. Quite possibly _younger_ : Aulea surely would have mentioned if she’d seen the name. Is this the destiny the Astrals have been saving for him, to be a dirty old man in love with a _child_?

He doesn’t recognize the surname, he thinks distantly with the part of his mind not devoted to panic. Not nobility, then. He wishes that made it easier to know what to do, but having married a commoner once, he knows that it can be done and the world will not come to an end. But what is he to do, turn up at some family’s door and demand their child by force of arms or in exchange for royal favor? He is not, cannot countenance ever being, that man. Is it better to allow them to come to him? Is that not essentially the same situation?

He will do nothing, he decides after chasing his mind around in circles a few times. Let the child’s parents decide what to do with the _Regis Lucis Caelum_ scrawled across their baby’s body. If they decide to bring the child to him, he will of course take them – him, in all likelihood, by the name – in as a ward, if only to save him from those who would seek to use him. If they instead keep the child from him, well, he can respect that. He is far from sure he wouldn’t do the same in their place.

He reaches for his shirt, and begins his day.

For a long time, nobody knows. Regis has never been the sort to wander around shirtless, has never felt the need to be dressed by servants, and now that his wife is dead, no one expects to see him naked. He simply takes what few steps are needed to prevent casual slips. According to the public, his wife was his soulmate; according to those in the know, he has no soulmate. Either is preferable to the truth.

He almost forgets, at times. There is so much to think of, so much to plan and arrange and react to, that his personal life falls somewhat by the wayside. He makes time for Noctis, as he can, but otherwise…. Clarus worries, he knows because Clarus tells him; Cor worries, he knows because Cor does not. He cannot fob either of them off with platitudes. They know him far too well for that, deserve far more of his respect than that. So he tells them the truth, or part of it: that part of him still misses Aulea like a drowning man misses air, that without her it is so very difficult to be anything but the King. (He wonders, at times, if somewhere there is a child who would make it easier.) He can manage being Noctis’s father, but no more.

They do not approve, but they understand. They understand even without him telling them the thing that makes being Noctis’s father into a greater burden, at times, than even the Crown. He has so very little time.

After Tenebrae falls, there is less time still, less hope, less of everything good in the world. Regis does his best, knowing all the while that it isn’t enough. It can never be enough. His son’s soulmate is trapped on the other side of a war that Regis does not foresee ending in his favor. His son is going to die far too soon, and if Regis cannot hold out, cannot give him time to grow, all will have been for naught.

In his darker hours, where once there was the warmth of Aulea’s arms to ease him, the tenderness of her smile, now there are only the black lines of a name across his chest, the only surety he has that somewhere, his soulmate lives. Somewhere, there is light. He almost goes looking more than once, stops himself with a force of will he had not thought he possessed. No. He will not force himself upon a child. Prompto, wherever he is, will come to him willingly or not at all.

It seems the answer will be “not at all”, as the years go by and no one brings such a child to his attention. And that is bearable. He will bear it. He lived so many years without a soulmate at all; it is enough and more than enough simply to know that one exists, that there is someone in the world he can love, someone in the world who can love him, even if they never meet.

But of course Niflheim can’t leave well enough alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regis receives a message and tells the truth.

The envoy arrives in late spring, when the trees are blooming in the gardens and birds nest in the crevices of the Citadel. Under a flag of truce and the watchful eyes of the Crownsguard, a tall woman with red hair climbs the Citadel steps and enters the throne room. The full Council is assembled to hear her message.

After the usual boilerplate of greetings and acknowledgments, the envoy produces a large envelope fastened with the Imperial seal and presents it to Regis. He takes it cautiously, watching her as he breaks the seal and extracts a thin sheaf of papers. She is suspiciously confident for a single envoy with no guard to protect her. A smile lurks at the corner of her lips.

“The Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt wishes to convey his felicitations to Your Majesty, King Regis, upon the discovery of your soulmate.”

For a fraction of a second, he’s stricken dumbfounded and staring at the photograph under his hand: a man’s bare chest, fair-skinned and hairless, _Regis Lucis Caelum_ curling around the left pectoral. It is his handwriting. It is his soulmate. And he cannot, _cannot_ acknowledge it even for an instant.

Recovering himself, he hopes futilely that no one saw his momentary slip. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Nothing other than what it seems, Your Majesty. Emperor Iedolas finds himself in the position of doing you a great favor – for certain considerations, of course.”

“Of course.” Here is the trap, then. “And what ‘considerations’ might those be?”

“In exchange for the safe surrender of Your Majesty’s soulmate, the Emperor requires only that you in turn surrender the territories of –”

The envoy continues, but Regis has no attention for Aldercapt’s spurious demands. Does he truly think Regis so weak-hearted as this? He looks to his Council to gauge their reaction. They look more offended than considering, although Clarus has his eyes on Regis, not on the envoy.

“Enough.” He cuts off the envoy in the middle of her sentence. “We reject these terms utterly. Return to Emperor Aldercapt and tell him that Lucis thought better of him than this.” Lucis thought nothing of the kind, but it is politic to pretend Regis thinks there are depths to which Iedolas will not stoop.

“And your soulmate? What shall I tell him?” the envoy asks, apparently unaware of how close she comes to being sent back in pieces.

Regis stares her down. “My soulmate is dead. I have no other.” The words hurt him to say, but they must be said.

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” The envoy bows and takes her leave, and Regis is left to more domestic wolves.

The Council takes some calming down, but they are all long since used to the idea that Regis is without a soulmark, and none think to question it too closely (except Clarus, but he does not question it aloud, and that is enough for now). Regis turns them to debating minor matters of domestic policy without it being too obvious what he is avoiding. He hopes.

At the end of the Council session, he rises and, as if he had almost forgotten, says mildly, “Clarus, I would meet with you and Marshal Leonis at your earliest convenience.”

“Certainly.” The light in Clarus’s eyes says he has much to say. “He should be available now.” Regis wonders idly whether Cor knows he is available.

Whether he does or not, in short order the three of them are gathered in Regis’s private study, the documents brought by the envoy spread out on the desk. Regis has already memorized them all. There isn’t much to memorize: a date of birth, a few pieces of personal information. There is no portrait.

“You’ve heard about the envoy?” he says to Cor once the heavy door is shut.

“I briefed him on the way,” Clarus confirms.

Cor picks up the photograph and examines it closely. “Very well doctored,” he observes.

Regis breathes in. Breathes out. Shakes his head. “Genuine.”

Cor looks up with shock in his eyes; Clarus, on the other hand, nods as if Regis has only confirmed what he already guessed. Clarus has always known him too well. “Genuine?!”

“I’m afraid so.”

Clarus crosses his arms in front of his chest. “When were you going to tell us you had a soulmate after all?”

“I never planned to,” Regis admits. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Mattered! If you’d told us, we could have sent out search squads, found him before the Empire did. Instead we’re in a cursed awkward position, to say the least.”

“No, we are not. As far as Aldercapt is concerned, as far as the world knows, I have rejected his offer. He will not gain any military advantage through me.”

Rather than concede, Clarus goes for the throat. “And what about psychological advantage? Are you telling me that if he sends you a video of your soulmate being tortured, that won’t hurt you? You know he would do it.”

Regis does know. He wishes that Clarus didn’t, that he could pass the thought off as paranoia. “So what am I to do, Clarus?” he demands angrily. “Exchange thousands of Lucian lives for one? Would you _want_ me to be so selfish?”

“Of course not!” Clarus snaps back. “Gods damn it, Regis, don’t put words in my mouth! I just want you to acknowledge for once that not every burden is yours to bear alone!”

At that, all Regis’s anger goes out of him, leaving him feeling very hollow. “I do know, old friend. But this one – it seemed so personal. I never suspected the Empire had him.” Never in his darkest nights did he think of that. That Prompto did not want to come to him, yes; never that he _could_ not.

“He is very young,” Cor observes soberly from where he has been ignoring both of them in favor of looking through the documents.

Regis sighs. “And there is that, as well.” What must they think of him, having a soulmate young enough to be his son?

“No, I meant – they would have known at once, if he was born in Niflheim. They instituted the soulmark registry thirty years ago. Why wait so long?”

That is an easy enough answer. “Because we only recently began to push them back,” Regis says. “All their military might is not availing them. Thus, this ‘offer’ instead.”

Cor nods. “Very well. Do you wish me to leave at once, Your Majesty?”

Regis does not follow at first. “Leave?”

“To extract him.” Cor says it as though it is obvious.

Perhaps it is, because Clarus laughs at his confusion. “What, did you call us here to moan about the situation, or to do something about it?”

“It was not my intention to do either. I merely thought both of you deserved to hear the whole truth, and from me.”

“And we appreciate that, naturally, but what is a sword arm _for_ if not to rescue your soulmate from durance vile?” Clarus has clearly been reading those novels again. Cor just nods along as if this makes perfect sense.

Regis surrenders to his friends. “Oh, very well. What do you need?”

“They will be keeping him in Zegnautus Keep,” Cor says slowly. “It is difficult to infiltrate, but not as impossible as they think it is. I have contacts there.”

“You mean to go alone?” Clarus asks.

Cor shrugs. “In an ideal world, no, but under the circumstances I’m not sure who to trust.”

Regis nods. Over the past year or so, they’ve noticed an increased flow of information making it out of Lucis, some of which is highly classified. They have a mole, possibly more than one, and that at the highest level. Not even Cor’s intelligence office is above suspicion.

“Captain Drautos insists the Glaive are clean,” says Clarus. “You could take some of them.”

“Not subtle,” says Cor.

“They can be, at need. And if you get caught, the magic might give you a critical edge.”

“Alright, I’ll speak to him, see who he can spare.”

“Good. And Cor? Be careful.” Regis knows he shouldn’t, but he worries when Cor is out of reach – vestiges of the scapegrace fifteen-year-old he still remembers trying to keep out of more trouble than he could handle, with limited success.

“I always am.” Regis can’t let a falsehood of such magnitude go without a Look. “…Yes, Your Majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is like a 78% chance of any given Imperial envoy being Ardyn under an illusion. This particular one, though? 95%.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto has a day that could have been a lot better, but could also, probably, have been worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the changes to the tags! Nothing here is explicit, but we're heading over to Gralea in this chapter, and it's not a nice place.
> 
> I've started a spinoff story to this one; it's called [The Keeping the Stars Apart Job](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11064066/chapters/24671763%22), and it picks up where last chapter left off, more or less, over on the Lucian side of things.

Prompto is not like the other subjects. He knows this because he has privileges they don’t, like: a name, private quarters, different rations, noncombat training, visitor privileges. But he isn’t a real person, either. He knows this because he’s told so, and besides, real people have privileges he doesn’t. He isn’t entirely clear on what those privileges are, but he knows all the real people get to leave the Keep at the end of the day and go home.

He only knows about “home” from what he’s overheard in the Keep, the same way he knows about a lot of things real people get to do and have. The staff talk a lot, around him and over his head, and even if he’s not allowed to talk to them, no one stops him from listening.

There’s a short list of people he is allowed to talk to, mostly military officers who visit him as part of their duties. Prompto isn’t entirely sure why it’s their job to visit him, when they have so much more important things to do, but he isn’t about to ask and risk having his visitor privileges taken away.

There are also the other visitors, the Emperor and the Chancellor who come to check on his progress now and then. Prompto doesn’t like them, even though he always learns a lot when they visit. They like to talk, and the Chancellor especially doesn’t mind Prompto’s questions most of the time, but they…he thinks “creep him out” is the right phrase for the crawling feeling he gets in his stomach. He doesn’t like when they attend his training, and he doesn’t like _them_. Maybe he can’t tell anyone so, but he can hold on to that tiny rebellion and let it warm him after bad days.

Today is a bad day. The Emperor and the Chancellor both come, and they are _furious_ – or at least the Emperor is. Prompto never knows what the Chancellor is feeling. Something’s gone wrong, Prompto gathers that much, and it has to do with the man whose name is written on Prompto’s skin. The man he belongs to.

“ _He_ doesn’t want you,” the Emperor says, holding Prompto up with a hand on his collar so he can’t collapse in pain. For a man who looks so frail, the Emperor is very strong. “Does that upset you, knowing that the man you were made for doesn’t care about you in the least?”

Honestly, Prompto doesn’t know how he feels about that. He can’t seem to find enough brain to think about it right now. But he does know what the right answer is. The Emperor likes it when he’s hurt. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor shakes him hard enough that his teeth rattle. “Ungrateful brat!” Oh. This is one of those times when there is no right answer. “Have you no respect for your betters? Those who raised you, cared for you, while _King Regis_ abandoned you to die?”

“No, Your Majesty! I didn’t – didn’t mean -” He fumbles for words, looking for something that will get him out of this and finding nothing. The Emperor drops him to the ground, and Prompto decides to stay down. He tries to make himself as small as possible, curl up so the softest parts of him are protected. Sometimes it helps.

This time it means he can catch most of the kicks on his shins and forearms. It’s not so bad, he’s thinking, when of course he slips and a booted foot slams into his hand. He feels something give with a crack, but he doesn’t dare uncurl enough to look. He’s been kicked in the face before and doesn’t want it to happen again.

The Emperor gets bored of kicking him after a while. Prompto waits a bit to make sure it’s over, then slowly sits up. His left middle finger is red and swollen and doesn’t want to move properly. The rest is only bruises.

“Behold, the _righteous king’s_ soulmate,” the Emperor sneers, looking down at Prompto. He doesn’t look as angry anymore.

The Chancellor chuckles. “A pitiful mate for a pitiful monarch, wouldn’t you say?” He smiles down at Prompto with the look that he’s almost positive means bad things coming. Most things the Chancellor does mean bad things coming, but this smile more than most.

He’s not wrong. Bad things do come. By the time the Chancellor and the Emperor decide they’re done with his training and let him limp back to his quarters, Prompto hurts all over and his voice is hoarse from screaming. He isn’t sure what he was supposed to be learning, except maybe not to exist around the Chancellor’s smile, and he already knows that.

He doesn’t have much of a stomach for his rations when the guard brings them in, but he forces himself to choke them down anyway. Rations aren’t optional. Plus, he should really be grateful, shouldn’t he? The other subjects just get ration bars. He’s lucky.

After his rations are finished and the tray taken away, Prompto sits on his bed and tugs one of his secret treasures out from under the mattress. The newspaper is starting to blur from being touched so much, and he knows almost all the words by heart, but it’s something to do when he’s not in training. He flips through it with his face almost pressed to the page, studying the photographs carefully, looking for something he hasn’t seen before. Every time, there’s something new. This time, it’s the people in the background of a “party”: one woman is caught in the act of dropping a glass. It’s frozen in time, never hitting the floor. Prompto likes it.

Suddenly the door to his quarters swings open, and he frantically stuffs the newspaper back under his mattress. He’s not stupid enough to think that no one knows he has it, but maybe if they don’t actually see him with it, they won’t take it away.

When he sees who it is, he smiles. “Major Ravus!”

“It’s ‘Colonel’ now,” the officer corrects, but he doesn’t seem particularly angry that Prompto got it wrong. Prompto likes that about him: he’s often angry, but not usually with Prompto.

“Colonel Ravus,” he repeats, committing the change to memory. “It’s good to see you!”

“Hmph,” Colonel Ravus says. “I was sent to provide you with medical attention. Ridiculous,” he adds. “I’m a soldier, not a _nursemaid_. Nonetheless. What are your injuries?”

Prompto holds up his swollen left hand. “I think my finger’s broken.” The rest of it is mostly just bruises and aches, nothing Colonel Ravus can do anything about. He’s not bleeding anywhere, or anything. He’s pretty sure. He usually notices that stuff.

“Tch!” Colonel Ravus makes a lot of noises that aren’t words. Prompto is getting better at understanding him anyway. This noise means he doesn’t like what he’s seeing. “It certainly is.” He sits down on the bed next to Prompto, close enough that their legs touch. “I must set it,” he says, taking the hand in both of his and looking closely at the broken finger. “This will hurt.”

Prompto nods. He bites down on his lower lip to keep from making a sound as Colonel Ravus sets the broken bone. It doesn’t hurt too much, he thinks. Not compared to training earlier. Okay, that doesn’t really make it easier to handle, but he can handle it. He’s done it before.

When Colonel Ravus is done, his finger doesn’t hurt quite as badly as it did before. He’s still scared to move it, though.

“Don’t move,” Colonel Ravus instructs, reaching into the medical box he brought with him and taking out a stick and a length of tape. Prompto stays still, watching, as he splints Prompto’s finger and starts tying it to the next finger. So it stays straight, he remembers from the last time he broke a finger.

It still hurts too much for him to want to think about it. Instead, he asks, “Colonel Ravus? Is it true that he doesn’t want me?” There is only one “he” in Prompto’s life, and everyone who knows him knows who it is.

Colonel Ravus presses his lips together. He looks angry, but his hands stay steady. “He doesn’t want you enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to do what he must in order to gain you.”

“Oh.” Prompto fidgets. He doesn’t really know what that means, but asking Colonel Ravus about him is always difficult. Still, it’s easier than asking anyone else. At least Colonel Ravus usually answers him. Probably honestly? Prompto thinks so, anyway. “But _why_ doesn’t he want me enough?” What is Prompto doing wrong? A lot of things, if he listens to his trainers. He tries his best, he does! It just isn’t enough.

Colonel Ravus sighs and puts down Prompto’s hand, the splinting done. “Because he is a murderer who cares only for himself, and that son of his is no better. Put him out of your mind, Prompto. It is better so.”

Prompto isn’t sure how good that advice is for him. He was made for King Regis; he can’t just forget about that. Still, he knows Colonel Ravus means well, so he says, “Thanks, Colonel Ravus.”

“Think nothing of it.”

They sit together for a while, side by side. This is Prompto’s favorite thing about visitor privileges: they’re allowed to touch him in ways that don’t hurt. Colonel Ravus sits stiffly, but when Prompto leans against him he makes a little sound with no meaning and pets his hair for a few minutes. That’s good. Prompto likes that.

Colonel Ravus has to leave before Prompto has gotten enough of being touched (he never gets enough of being touched), but it’s better than nothing. A lot better. The day already doesn’t seem like it can have been so bad. Training may have been hard and painful, but any day when he gets a visitor has to be a good day.

The sounds of the Keep outside his quarters get quieter as the sun sets. Prompto kneels up on his bed to look out his window. The blur of buildings outside always looks better at sunset. When the last rays are gone, he curls up on his bed, shifts around until he finds the position that hurts the least, and drifts off to sleep.


End file.
